Ilargi: Recorded earlier this week in London, England. Stoneleigh is working on the next essay on the Japan nuclear situation, but we're flying to Sweden overnight from Britain, and then there are 5 lectures in 4 days there, so working time is limited. Stay tuned.

"And through all this momentum chasing, my worst draw down was only 6%. When stocks started to weaken in 2008, my momentum system sent me to commodities. When they tanked, momentum sent me on to long term treasuries, then to gold, then back to stocks again in March 2009."

rcg1950 said...

"As you are discussing playing a zero sum game in the big casino your success depends entirely on being faster, smarter or better informed than all the other momentum traders you are sticking with losses to make your gains. You have to hope you will always be the fastest gunslinger in town or don't face better cheats than you. Tough way to live (or die). Good luck. I'll pass."

rcg1950

Your comment "felt" right. But the next day, when I was warming my brain up with a carafe of hot coffee, it alerted me that there was a logical, if not moral, fallacy to it.

Markets are not a zero sum game, as the virtual value portrayed by them is not a fixed number. Say Goldman Sucks and JPM sell a stock back and forth to each other, like two kids playing catch, each raising the price by one dollar. (Of course this could never happen in the real world ). They are both winners - no losers as long as the recursive law of gravity stays at bay.

Of course they are syphoning off wealth from everyone else in the universe by doing this, but you can not lay the loss at any particular doorstep. The loss would effect people who never bought a stock i their lives.

@Robert Wilson “how can we discuss issues such as the actual evidence for the LNT (linear no-threshold) hypothesis and other models of ionizing radiation effect including radiation hormesis?”

Again; any therapeutic verity to radiohormesis is largely/wholly irrelevant to the enduring public health hazard from this contamination, as long-term exposure to fallout contaminants is expected to yield undosable bioaccumulative environmental exposure from various persistent radioisotopes that cannot be readily physiologically proportioned within thresholds for presumed beneficial qualities. Locally resultant radiative intensity within certain organisms/ tissues, would by progressive bioaccumulation far exceed supposed thresholds for beneficial functioning, especially in children [born into contamination], and this exposure would have high probability of causing manifold genetic damage sufficient to induce mutagenity, carcinogenity and teratogenity over time.

This effect, which is reasonably certain to occur in significant measures, cannot be statistically offset by hypothetical decreases in randomised carcinogenity or other healthwise improvements throughout the general population derived from any precisely proportioned exposure to intensified background radiation emmited by scattered contamination, if such a mechanism exists.

“Your comment "felt" right. But the next day, when I was warming my brain up with a carafe of hot coffee, it alerted me that there was a logical, if not moral, fallacy to it.

Markets are not a zero sum game, as the virtual value portrayed by them is not a fixed number. Say Goldman Sucks and JPM sell a stock back and forth to each other, like two kids playing catch, each raising the price by one dollar. (Of course this could never happen in the real world ). They are both winners - no losers as long as the recursive law of gravity stays at bay.”----------

el g - here’s the thinking on this you forced me to do. (I’m really straining with this (getting a headache) and wide open to corrections.

re virtual value and banks selling back & forth. At any given time neither one of the 2 players is than more than $1 ahead. They would have to find a 3rd party buyer (sucker?) to realize a gain.

Over relatively short periods of time (the 3 years or so to which James’ operations refer) one could assume that no significant amount of new ‘real’ wealth was created. Best case: 3 years at 3 to 4% real growth yields at most 12% real gains and we all know these last 3 years had closer to 0% growth. So anything like the 40% gains James claims had to come from transfers within the pre-existing total investment pool (essentially zero sum with winners and losers). However, if ‘new’ money is LENT into that pool for buying assets at bid up prices (Chairsatan?) the game changes. We all know what to call the practice of lending greater amounts of money than real growth can support (ponzi scheme) and how that practice always ends.

Stoneleigh - hoping you can find a little time to address the Thorium Reactor question that Max K raised in your interview. I fear a lot of people are going to be hyping that as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard did in his latest column Pritchard Thorium

M"rcg1950 said...Stoneleigh - hoping you can find a little time to address the Thorium Reactor question that Max K raised in your interview. I fear a lot of people are going to be hyping that as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard did in his latest column Pritchard Thorium"

No time to go in depth right now, and I'd have to look back in time to do so, last time I addressed this was on TOD, but just a question:

Thorium and Fast Breeders are not new, they've been around for decades. So why is it that neither are employed other than maybe in experimental settings at best?

New credit is always going into and out of the pool. The monetary base is always changing, even without the central banks. At one time, commercial banks created the vast majority of credit money from thin air, and then we had the growth of the shadow banking system.

Last I looked, Oanda FX trade was willing to let me bet on currencies with just 10% down and 90% margin. And they are not a bank.

I am just making the point that buying and selling stocks or commodity futures is not a straight zero sum game in the sense that your weekly poker session with a bunch of friends would be.

OK, to follow my example of Goldman Sucks and JPM playing catch with a stock. GS starts at $50, and they play 30 catches. So now GS is at $80 in cash and JPM has the stock valued at $81 according to the last fraudulent) sale. They are both way ahead. The money got sucked out of the general economy through inflation, i.e, an increase in the overall credit supply. Of course JPM has to find a greater fool to make good on the scam. Otherwise, they would go down with the ship. Last time, as I recall, the greater fools were the taxpaying serfs of the USA and EU with Hank Paulson on his knees.

There are some proponents running around saying the crud from this fuel cycle is "only radioactive for 500 years" but in the end, it is doing the same thing other fission reactors do: taking ultralow-level, ultralong-life actinide elements and converting them to middle-weight fission products which are much much more dangerous. Then we could get into a discussion of what you use to contain, and how you dispose of, mixed fluoride salts of heavy metals (superhot with radioactive byproducts). It also has to withstand neutron bombardment.

If you do not go the fluoride route, you still have to reprocess the reactor crud to obtain the fissionables you have bred in the thorium blanket. Much in the same way the current generation of reactors ought to, but isn't, recovering plutonium and uranium from its own spent fuel pools.

In the really big picture, I consider Thorium as just another brand of Hopium.

"Again; any therapeutic verity to radiohormesis is largely/wholly irrelevant to the enduring public health hazard from this contamination, as long-term exposure to fallout contaminants is expected to yield undosable bioaccumulative environmental exposure from various persistent radioisotopes that cannot be readily physiologically proportioned within thresholds for presumed beneficial qualities. Locally resultant radiative intensity within certain organisms/ tissues, would by progressive bioaccumulation far exceed supposed thresholds for beneficial functioning, especially in children [born into contamination], and this exposure would have high probability of causing manifold genetic damage sufficient to induce mutagenity, carcinogenity and teratogenity over time."

-GravityAll of those big words must mean something. I do wonder about weasel words such as largely, expected, presumed, supposed and probability in a world where life has existed and thrived in a sea of ionizing radiation for eons.RW SO CA

Based on a lazy afternoon's research, I'm inclined to agree with DIYer that Thorium does seem to bear a remarkable resemblance to Hopium. But mostly I want to say that it looks to this observer like at the end of the day we will still be dancing "with the Devil in the pale moonlight".

Canadian readers rejoice! The first EVER talk of a housing bubble has happened on teevee! Right about the moment when the fast and furious decline starts (and the world is sleepwalking to Olduvai as a small side plot). Better late than never.

I disagree with pasttense (above) that this is merely a repeat of what Stoneleigh said earlier.

In particular, in part two, she addresses the fact that nuclear power plants (and their spent fuel) require the functioning of a very complex society for a very long time (much longer than any society has yet existed). Without this continued and unbroken functioning, these plants will not survive and will become a danger to their surroundings. This is an important observation in context of her view of the future of modern society.

I recommend listening to Stoneleigh's discussion of this and related issues.

Redceder and stoneleigh's point that we need a highly complex society to keep the pandora's box of nuclear energy closed is spot on and is my main complaint against nuclear power.

Our earth has been bombarded with comets and solar flares, clouded by eruptions, and knocked down by pandemics. Something, sooner or later, is going to come along and knock us back in to the 19th century.

What happens to all of these nuclear facilities and their spent fuel rods that need constant maintenance?

After noticing Nicole looking away from the camera and slightly down ... off to her notes (thereby breaking eye contact) ... I would say the U.S TelePrompter-in-Chief should get more accolades for his excellent facade skills.

After viewing this interview,and taking in mind AE whole mindset, I have to wonder what their prescription is.

Surely someplace such as NYC, or Chicago,SanFran or L.A. can't have its millions growing their daily fare in boutique gardens and everyone busing,biking, walking to work. In your dreams.

So, having dispensed with nuclear energy, given up on oil, what is AEs prescription?

Move to Canada and use battery banks to store solar/wind energy generated from your small farm?

Sorry, come the demise of modern life, battery banks aren't going to be available any more than the oil-based products you claim won't be.

Enough naysaying.How about giving a realistic road map for survival (and no, us all reaching out to neighbors, joining hands and singing kumbaya won't do). Fact is, it's far more likey the US masses will give their government/military carte blanche before they cut back to that extent.

Under your current scenario of no oil,no nuclear You might as well say ... "everyone... you're screwed" and at least be straightforward about it.

But we are realists here at TAE. We recognize that the common attitude will require going to war to satisfy that enormous sense of entitlement.

Or as I recall from a conversation in another forum (it was on usenet in 1999 or so)... the conclusion was that we will burn fossil fuel until it is no longer available, and then we will switch to hastily-permitted and shoddily-constructed nuclear plants. And I think The Wharf Rat summed it up nicely in that single line.

Radiation hormesis is completely irrelevant to the persistent public health hazard from this contamination. This is because the fallout contaminants will undoubtedly yield [many centuries of] undosable bioaccumulative exposure to various persistent radioisotopes in contaminated areas, and this long-term radiative exposure simply cannot be [individually] proportioned within hypothetical thresholds for 'presumed' therapeutic qualities.

By the persistent environmental bioaccumulation of relevant radioisotopes, the localised radiative intensity within populations, individuals and bodily tissues will far exceed the 'supposed' boundaries for beneficial functioning, as possibly derived from techniques of radiohormetic therapeutics.Localised radiative overexposure is certain to result in physiological and genetic damage of sufficient severity to detectably increase occurence of mutagenity, carcinogenity and teratogenity in those populations who are persistently overexposed or born into contamination, depending on fate.

The inevitable ill effects in heavily contaminated areas, [depending on estimated volume, trajectory and constituency of contamination], cannot then be offset, diminished or undone by a proposed mechanism of therapeutic radiohormetics, as accompanying this fallout, which may possibly decrease ambient carcinogenity [or cause other positive health effects] in the general population, by means of precisely proportioned radiative exposure [of unknown dimensions and organic actionality], notwithstanding the unproportionable dosage of relevant exposure to intensified background radiation and progressively bioaccumulated contaminants.

The radiative dosage is principally uncontrollable, thereby any therapeutic radiohormesis effects in the general population, as hypothetically derived from precisely proportioned exposure, cannot possibly [be expected to] positively compensate for the known effects of [localised] radiative overexposure inherent in fallout disasters, which are tragically substantiated.

Mailon said...Fact is, it's far more likey the US masses will give their government/military carte blanche before they cut back to that extent.

Your phrasing suggests you are not Usanistani. If so, then I guess you can be forgiven for not realizing that our government hasn't given a damn what the masses have wanted for a hell of a long time.Under your current scenario of no oil,no nuclear You might as well say ... "everyone... you're screwed" and at least be straightforward about it.

Now that you've said it, straight and plain, I guess we need not. Though I'm pretty sure we have. But, to put it more precisely, some folks are already screwed, others are waiting to be screwed, and some can't imagine they could ever be screwed. Time is momma nature's way of preventing everything from happening at once.

That line seemed a lot more reasonable in 1999. I would suggest that recent events in the financial universe indicate those shoddily built nuke plants will not draw enough funding to be built even very shoddily. There's much easier money to be made and Lord Mammon doesn't preach compassion to his followers.

To be honest, I had never heard of therapeutic mechanisms of radiation hormesis before it was mentioned in the course of meltdown events, but I had imagined some such workings in evolution, and the possible parameters thereof. This contamination is far beyond those parameters.

"The Science Ministry says a reading of 1.4 millisieverts was taken on Wednesday morning in Namie Town northwest of the plant.

The government has not told residents outside the 30-kilometer radius of the plant to evacuate, or even to stay indoors.

Someone staying outdoors for 24-hours at that location would exceed the annual limit of one millisievert. The limit is based on a recommendation by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

The science ministry obtained the reading after monitoring 10 locations outside the 30-kilometer zone, following reports that relatively high levels of radiation were found outside that area.

Radiation exerts now say the amount of radiation detected does not pose a health risk. But they advise residents in the area to stay alert for any possible rise in radiation levels, because the power plant is not likely to stop releasing radiation any time soon.Sunday, March 27, 2011 08:53 +0900 (JST)"

nah. So, you get 1 years worth of radiation in 24 hours. Big whoop.

Oh, and the seawater has jumped again, instead of a mere 1,200x more radio-iodine than "normal", this evening is 1,800x more.

But- they're saying; since it has a half life of 8 days; then, therefore, in 8 days, it'll be no problem. (ie., it'll be only 900x more than "normal" then... unless it keeps going up...)

On the therapeutic consistency of radiation hormesis mechanisms in the context of fukushima fallout; [The decisive factor must be] Its the multicentennial bioaccumulative persistency of [supercritical] radiative intensity. stupids.? Apologies, its beyond my powers to simplify or concisely explain this matter.

I dearly hope you are right, and the financial whizbang will not be there to build nuclear plants, shoddy or otherwise.

I was just thinking of a task for the Gene Twisters. Modify a flower to change colour in the presence of radiation, and to be able to thrive in any biome. People a few decades from now will not have great access to Geiger counters, and the 70,000 tons of waste in the US blew my mind.

A great comment from another blog I follow--I thought it related nicely to your comment. This is clearly what I&S have been saying for years, whether it is about oil or money or cookies.

Bill Pulliam said...The real paradigm that needs shifting here is the idea that peak oil is a "problem" to be "solved." Peak oil is no more a problem in search of a solution than is the autumnal equinox. The equinox happens no matter what you do, and winter is coming no matter what you do. This is just a phenomenon, a circumstance, an inevitability. It's not a challenge with an answer that will eliminate it.

Energy conservation is not a choice. In the fairly near future, it won't be a matter of choosing to use less energy; there just will be less energy whatever your "choices" might be. You WILL live with less energy (unless you die first), that is just a fact, same as the fact that you WILL live with shorter and colder days in the winter. But, of course, this will be a permanent winter, so you WILL figure out how to live with that forever. There is no choice here, there is no solution. There is adaptation, accommodation, that's it.

Those who actually have been taking in JMG's recent writings and their intention should have noticed this. He is not talking about solving peak oil or making optional lifestyle choices. He is presenting methods to adjust to and deal with the inevitable pressures that are impinging on all of us no matter what our choices might be.

A must view now that the nuclear crisis in Japan is playing out before our eyes-" Into Eternity" a film/doc by Michael Madsen. This film is about the efforts by Finland to build an underground storage facility for nuclear waste at Onkula. The construction will continue until the 22nd century and hopefully contain the waste for 100,000 years. A must view!!!!

@Stoneleigh, as you know Canada is in election mode. The issues /talking points do not list nuclear energy or war in Libya without the consent of parliament.I attended a " resilience " conference yesterday. A woman from Council of Canadians came up to me and said she has been listening to your podcasts on Eco-radio(?) She was up listening to you at 4 in the morning rather than sleeping:)

I never use notes in interviews or presentations. I was in a room by myself and it wasn't actually clear where I was supposed to be looking at first. Max clarified that part way through over the audio connection. It's always much easier to manage eye contact when the eyes one is meant to be looking at are actually there. There wasn't even a video screen of Max.

I have no idea how you come to that conclusion. I am not a fan of nuclear power for many reasons (cost, risk, waste, timeframe, requirement for maintaining complexity etc etc).

I think it's important to keep things in perspective though. People in many places are over-reacting regarding the health risks to themselves. The impact in the area of the plant is huge of course, and a wider area will have significantly elevated risk. I don't think distant places will face a significantly elevated risk, especially in comparison with the risks they are going to face as a result of general socioeconomic upheaval.

The fear radius will be much wider than the health impact radius. As an example, Max mentioned xenon 133. This substance is used in medical imaging. People are asked to inhale it in order to assess their pulmonary function. Just because something is detectable does not mean it represents a health risk. People particularly fear radiation because it's invisible, they don't understand it and they have no control over exposure. This is understandable, but it skews their risk perception. People are far more likely to suffer from the human over-reaction to this event than from the event itself, unless they are in the vicinity of the plant.

"Kimberly" is a sock puppet. Its comments are intended to serve one purpose only and that is to discredit Stoneleigh. No matter what had been said on Max's interview, "Kimberly" or an alter ego would have argued the opposite. There's nothing to see here, that's just the demented world we live in.

el gI think we agree speculative ‘investment’ is both morally suspect and with the infusion of massive amounts of credit from whatever source is socially impoverishing on the largest scales. Steve Keen has made the interesting proposal that trading in equities in the secondary market (practically the entire market) be time limited, with stocks becoming literally worthless after a set period (40 years or so). Thanks for getting me to think harder about this.

DIYer, IMN, IlargiActually I had researched the thorium fuel cycle via wikiP, and it had occurred to me that there just might be some good reasons why thorium fuel dissolved as 1200 degree+ (F) molten fluoride salts hasn’t been developed. But the idea is currently gaining some following among people who should know better and a clear and forceful critique from someone who is uniquely qualified to do it probably needs be made sooner or later.

rubenThanks for the Bill Pulliam quote. The sooner everyone starts dealing with the new reality instead of trying to hold onto the old one the better off we’ll be. In that vein, this piece on Counterpunch seems relevant and even hopeful in an odd way. Karatani

I agree about Kimberly. It's always hard to tell if these people are mentally disabled or on Cass Sunstein's payroll at the Ministry of Truth. Though I must admire St. Stoneleigh who always responds to them as if they were normal and well intentioned. Our taxpayer dollar's are being spent to dissemble and throw the golden apple of discord into blog's such as this, headed up by that great constitutional, Harvard lawyer and close buddy of O'bumma, Sunstein. Of course, this is explicitly forbidden under current federal statute, but then again, as that great philosophe, M. Bush the Younger pointed out, the Constitution is just a piece of paper. Its primary mission is to short circuit the 9/11 Truther movement before it gained enough momentum to put Cheney and Rumsfeld on death row. (Bush could probably beat the rap on the grounds of mental incompetence as long as he was tried outside of Texas, where they love to execute retarded people. I would even give odds that they didn't tell him about the operation until after the fact. Loose lips sink ships.) But the Ministry of Truth probably has some spare change for the economic truther movement as well.

On another subject, I agree with you that there is a good chance that by the time the kerfuffle of the melt down of Japan fades into the setting sun of the American psyche, or what passes for such, there may simply not be enough money to build more nuclear reactors, even really shoddy ones. Unless they build the actual reactor vessel out of tin foil, expropriated from the hatware of people such as myself. That would cut costs. Japan's loss may be our gain, though we still will have to deal with swimming pools filled with spent rods that glow in the dark. Was it on this blog where a commenter from Washington state wrote that it was considered unsportsmanlike to hunt a deer after dark because it glowed? Better not tell Santa or he might be stopped by Vaterland Security. Rudolf was sticking his nose where it didn't belong.

Also,

I find it fascinating how the Libya operation has split France and Germany in NATO, and pushed France and the UK together. Wonder how this will play out in terms of the Euro meltdown?

Finally, I have to admire the tactics of the Oligarchs. They have now shifted the initiative of progress along the axis of a fascist police state from the federal to state governments, particularly the many delusionally sociopathic and newly elected governors of such. They are sending bills to their legislatures which would allow them to dissolve by executive fiat any local government they choose. But hey - this is state's rights, so it's OK to the pseudo-libertarian right wing headed up by the Koch brothers. It's OK to be anally raped as long as it's done by a state government.

I submitted this a couple of days ago--just after Ilargi posted the link to the next one...

Ruben said...You know, I always have a pretty dismissive attitude towards consipracy theories. After all, I imagine TAE to be a little eddy in the internet, a small little backwater where people talk to each other. What could be so threatening?

But then along comes Kimberly. No human being with free will could sound like such an idiot--so I assume s/he is being paid.

Glad you brought up the Kochs. While the Pentagonians have gone public with their sock puppet plan and Ministry of Truth surely has some, we should not forget that .gov is merely the servant not the master. I feel confidant the Kochs and their ilk have their own sock puppets.

Regarding nuke plant investment, I wasn't saying the money wouldn't exist. Who knows how much money there will be? What is pretty obvious today is that the Big Dogs are doing their best to keep their money in liquid assets. It's pretty hard to dump a partially completed nuke plant. It has been reported that so far noone is chasing that $36B pot the Prez put on the table. Too risky.

The EU didn't work out and so it goes. I think Germany probably ends up looking eastward and northward for allies. Apparently, they've already tried to sell Russia their Leopard tank. Things will get very interesting over there. It seems to me that Italy finds itself in a very interesting spot. The African refugee problem, which it is claimed their EU partners prefer to ignore, is going to cause trouble there.

The momentum hounds need to get busy and double down on shorting Europe. Then with our own intra/inter state troubles at the boil here in Usanistan, there will be the mother of all shorting opportunities. Let the buyer beware.

"One subcontracted worker who laid cables for new electrical lines March 19 described chaotic conditions and lax supervision that made him nervous. Masataka Hishida said neither he nor the workers around him were given a dosimeter, a device used to measure one’s exposure to radiation. He was surprised that workers were not given special shoes; rather, they were told to put plastic bags over their street shoes. When he was trying on the gas mask for the first time, he said the supervisor told him and other subcontractors, “Listen carefully, I’m only going to say this one time” while explaining how to use it."

Funny that a society that produces robotic dogs to keep lonely secretaries company can't have a team of robots ready to work in areas too toxic to support human life.

But no problem-- there are always the offspring of WWII kimakazi pilots who want to be heroes.

Actually there is a more equitable way to pick the best candidates to become heroes. Its called an organization chart. Just start at the top and send the Chairman of the Board into the containment vessel with a digital camera for a quick look around.

;) Implied a little humor.:) Not a personal attack at you at all. I am thoroughly convinced that you are real given your history and links on TAE.

When the defense department pays a single employee to manage 10+ fake persona's they can do much much better than kimberly. Killing fake persona's to substantiate others is the name of the game. Something to keep in mind when offering kudos or condemnation to newbies.

According to the WSJ article linked by Greenpa, this summer Japan may suffer insufficient supply amounting to "one million kilowatts, or about 20% of total usage".

Aside from the fact that the journalist apparently does not distinguish between power (W) and energy (Wh), one must wonder what he meant because one million kilowatt hours, or 1 GWh, is not much, probably around one millionth of Japanese yearly consumption. A journalist who cannot automatically detect an error between 20% and 0,0001% should probably write about something else.

On a lighter note, for a long time I wondered, when Greenpa linked to other sites, what on earth a "tin yurl" was, as in http://tinyurl.com/xxxxx. It took me a while, but I finally caught on. Personally, I prefer a brass yurl.

There's a few people out here with "gardener" type monikers so I thought I would throw this out there.

Anyone out there in the warmer climes where oleander grows have any familiarity with gardening around the stuff??

We had a hot tub pulled out and filled in last year. There was (still is) oleander along the fence that had been planted as a privacy screen.

I'm out there turning it over this week to put some veggies in. The oleander being there makes me kind of nervous.

I've surfed around and wasn't able to find anything that indicated it would be a problem. A few comments here and there on garden sites with people saying that they have gardens next to it. One site that said the toxin is a "large molecule" and as such won't be absorbed by other plants. Just the same I'm aiming to keep about 4-5 feet from the oleander.

@rcg1950 Originally stock companies were chartered for defined time and defined purpose. I'm not sure defined purpose should have been dropped, but putting a fixed and finite life on a valuable enterprise doesn't make sense to me. A railroad is an obvious example.

Stoneleigh's given a fairly balanced overview of the situation, its important to note that the fear radius is larger than the health hazard radius, at least in spatial terms. Not in temporal terms. In the long run, say after 200 years, the fear relating to this disaster would have dissipated, acute radiation fears ebbed away, perhaps the disasterous event itself forgotten, but the ill effects would persist in contaminated parts of Japan, and wherever else significant fallout was deposited. So in temporal terms, the fear/health radii ratio should become inverted.

Also, radiation hormesis mechanisms in the context of fukushima fallout are well irrelevant and nonsensical. The only decisive factor must be the multicentennial bioaccumulative persistency of supercritical radiative intensity in organisms, which far exceeds the presumed radiative flux parameters of the theory's beneficial actionality, I'm sure.

6) Radioactive water has no storage area, thousands of gallons with no place to go.

7) Electrical wiring for cooling can't be connected as radioactive water in buildings is present.

8) This prevents the main goal from being accomplished.

Qn) Japan's industrial & commercial heartland lies on the Kanto plains. This is the area 50 km south of Fukushima I believe till about half of the Greater Tokyo area.

45 Million people live here, it's basically the most productive area of Japan. So while radiation effects will not be global, could it conceivably make large swathes of the Kanto plain uninhabitable?

Knock on effects: Finance, Computing & Autos would be immediate.

Qn2) Fukushima's entombment would require an area twice as large as the main pyramid at Giza. So is saving the reactors still possible, now that the primary goal is cooling.

If not, how would the Japanese go about entombing it? This to right by the sea, Chernobyl required 600,000 people involved no? with an underground concrete bunker being built underneath the reactor to prevent a breach. And that to was a temporary solution.

Wikipedia writes that Japan produced 1025 GWh of electricity in 2008, so the figure of 1 GWh as 20% is suspect.

"In 2008, Japan ranked third in the world in electricity production, after the United States and China, with 1.025×103 GWh[1] produced during that year."

But I find this larger number also suspect. Fortunately, it was footnoted to an active link. The link gave the number in KWh but the author missed it and thought it was in Wh. So the real number forJapanese electric production in 2008 is 1025 TWh. (A terawatt hour is a trillion watt-hours or a 1000 gigawatt-hours). So you have the WSJ reporter (an economics major?) off by six orders of magnitude and the primary Wikipedia author off by a 1000 times. Doesn't anyone proof their stuff anymore? It's one thing to have a typo, a spelling, or a grammar error, but the whole point of the article was the numbers.

Reminds me of the famous Everett Dirksen quote from the last century, "A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you have some real money." Of course today it sounds less ironic.

BTW, terrorwatts is not a section in L.A. despite what Homeland Security says.

No. They don't. It's systemic; damn near the only place I hang out where people regularly check each other's math is here.

That includes Wall Street, Golem Sucks, The Fed, The Feds, MAcademia, The Join Chiefs, The AAAS, and The National MAcademies of Science and Engineering.

It's not polite, for crissakes. What, you wanna ask that guy across the table if he's sure his math is right? How rude! Everyone will be permanently pissed at you, and you won't be invited anywhere, or get any promotions, ever again.

VK, my handsome, buff and extremely bright Grandson, you have asked the questions on which I think the whole world is hanging.

I would think habitability of the Kanto Plain hinges on the winds. So far they have been mostly out to sea, at least according to Al Jazeera's weather crew. Even if it remains habitable, I think Japan's position as a major commercial power may be seriously threatened.

If there is truth to the stories that many of the Big Dogs fled the country as soon as F...youshima started to blow, then it just might have broken something very important to their culture. All over the world, effective governance is melting down at about the same rate as those reactors. Japan's captive government is a complete mess. I am wondering if the Japanese people will continue to put up with it.

I am thinking that perhaps entombing GE Mk1 reactors, especially four in tandem, might be a lot more difficult than one exploded RMBK. Not made any easier by being surrounded by a many kilometer debris field. I don't know, of course, but it strikes me that there just might be a problem that noone wants to talk about.

VK- yep, those are good questions. I don't think ANYbody can answer them right now- because the quality of the information available is so incredibly bad. It's really, really bad.

I'm guessing that Japanese societal decision making is showing us some very serious deficiencies just now. They've got a horrific series of additive catastrophes- and basically, nobody is really in charge. They keep hoping business as usual, with all their excellent polite processes, is going to handle it; and it's really not.

Wanna put me in charge? Crappy job, but somebody has to do it. First action; arrest 100% of all executives, top to bottom, of TEPCO. Lock them up permanently, and hire Egyptian interrogators to get any truth they can out of them any way they can.

Using a combination of Japanese Self Defense and US Navy engineers (nuclear experience) start finding out the god damn truth about what's happened, and tell the entire planet; updates every hour.

Who knows; maybe one or two of the reactors only have busted basic plumbing; that might be repaired, in time; some cooling restored. I think some entombing is going to be necessary- but if you don't have to; it's a shitty alternative.

And yeah; be ready to move a lot of people out.

According to NHK yesterday, entire villages from inside the 20 km evacuation zone were reforming; or merging with other villages outside. They already know they're not going back. Can't find that link today anymore.

"The Green Party may for the first time be part of a ruling coalition. Because of Fukushima."

If that statement refers to the national government, it is incorrect. The Green Party was a major constituent of the Social Democrats' coalition prior to Merkel's razor thin victory. Joschka Fischer, the head of the Greens, was Vice Chancellor of Germany.

Glennjeff; just tried it from here; worked for me. If you wait until it's run, then it will go on to the next CNN video. It's "japan.kesennuma.flooding" - but that can get you several different videos; none of which have the same impact as this one. I spent a half hour trying to get the plain YouTube - and failed.

El Gal - I'll happily take your word for it; I was repeating what I read on BBC; I suppose I should know better.

Surprised not many have picked up on this. Earlier on it was reported that radiation levels were 10 Million times normal in reactor 2. This was subsequently revised down to 100,000x. Bad but not that bad, right?

Yes, were it not for this, radioactive water contained, cesium-134 (half life 2 years), not iodine-134 (half life 52.5 minutes).

"NO, it was NOT a mistake. It was intentional deception. They're finally getting some good public relations advice. "When the truth is horrifying; first tell the people it's 100 times that bad. Then tell them you were mistaken- and it's only -horrifying." We're all relieved! No, a "real number" of some kind is now up on the BBC: "A spokesman for Japan's nuclear watchdog, Hidehiko Nishiyama, said the level of radiation in puddles near reactor two was confirmed at 1,000 millisieverts an hour. 'It is an extremely high figure,' Mr Nishiyama said. A cancer risk is evident with an exposure of 100 millisieverts a year." So; you'd be getting a year's worth of cancer causing radiation - 10 years worth; EVERY HOUR. But hey! it's not a million times worse!

In case people are unaware, fluoride plays a large part in the nuclear cycle (particularly in producing weapons grade materials), and the need to deal with resultant waste products is one reason many countries now have fluoride in their water supplies. Fluoride nuclear links

That is interesting. Our friend Wikipedia says that Cesium-134 is not a high yield product of fission or decay. But, it can be produced through neutron capture by Cs133, which it says is a common fission product. I wonder if it means them neutrons are moving a little slower than usual or something like that.

One news report I've seen several times today mentions detection of Cobalt (presumably isotope 60) which is listed as having a 5.27 year half-life.

Robert Wilson said.... . . in a world where life has existed and thrived in a sea of ionizing radiation for eons.

Luckily this little thing called distance helps protect life from sources of ionizing radiation. When that distance becomes effectively zero (when you ingest radioactive materials) the inverse-squre law and bio-accumulation really stuff up your shill-think.

NZSanctuary said...Robert Wilson said.... . . in a world where life has existed and thrived in a sea of ionizing radiation for eons.

Luckily this little thing called distance helps protect life from sources of ionizing radiation. When that distance becomes effectively zero (when you ingest radioactive materials) the inverse-squre law and bio-accumulation really stuff up your shill-think.

I definitely took advantage of the inverse square law during the years that I was inserting radium needles into cancers. However I have found it difficult to get away from the radioactive potassium 40 in my own blood;

I'll have to catch you on something else. It turns out that this was the first time that the Greens were a senior partner in a provincial coalition government. They polled a few more percent than the Social Democrats who they will form a coalition with.

Wanna put me in charge? Crappy job, but somebody has to do it. First action; arrest 100% of all executives, top to bottom, of TEPCO. Lock them up permanently, and hire Egyptian interrogators to get any truth they can out of them any way they can.

Nice to know zerofudge has the same opinion on the vid. same one, of course. Paul, many thanks for digging out the actual original youtube link; now it can be watched without the CNN, or other, foofaraw.

Holy crap! man, NHK just put THE scariest line up on their top of page news crawl - - the ruling political party in Japan has said - they are going to THINK about whether to actually go through with proposed corporate tax cuts. They think they MIGHT need some money to do some rebuilding...

Now that is some scary sh*t. As I said a day or two ago, some folks are already screwed and others are waiting to be screwed. I think the nation of Japan has probably just joined the growing ranks of the already screwed.

Now the BIG question is whether or not China can conjure up alternatives for those things only sourced from Japan. If not, I suppose they will be screwed as well.

The Bernank's keyboards are gonna be smokin. And still it will be deflation, as far as the little glass ball can see. I think Gaia still has things to teach the naked ape and I don't see any way we're gonna like it.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) admitted to the possibility in its early March 28 press conference that the steel Reactor Pressure Vessels that hold nuclear fuel rods in the Reactors 1, 2, 3 at Fukushima I Nuclear Plant may have broken. TEPCO explained the situation "Imagine there's a hole." Because of this "hole", contaminated water that's been poured into the Pressure Vessels to cool the fuel rods continues to leak, it is assumed.

In the Reactors 1, 2, and 3, the water level within the Pressure Vessels are not rising as much as desired. TEPCO admitted in the March 28 press conference that the reason why the Pressure Vessels haven't been filled with water was "probably a hole near the bottom, that's the image we have". Asked why there was a hole, TEPCO answered they did not know.

The Reactor Pressure Vessels (RPVs) are the most important of the 5-layer protection against radiation leak (other 4 are the fuel pellets, cladding of fuel rods, Container Vessels, and the Reactor buildings). The RPVs at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant is made of 16-centimeter thick steel, and it has an outlet at the bottom to insert measuring instruments. It is possible that the leak is from that area.

TEPCO also admitted to the possibility of the exposed nuclear fuel rods overheating and damaging the RPVs. According to the nuclear experts, if the fuel rods get damaged and start to melt, it will fall to the bottom of the RPVs and settle. It then becomes harder to cool with water effectively, because the surface area is smaller. It is possible that the melted fuel rods melted the wall of the RPVs with high temperature and created a hole.On the other hand, TEPCO said it didn't think the RPVs are completely broken, because the pressures inside the RPVs were higher than the atmosphere. "It is not like Chernobyl where the RPV exploded and the fuels were outside the RPV." TEPCO continued to believe in the integrity of the RPVs.

I read a story the other day (sorry, no links) about a Japanese engineer who, years ago, in a fit of remorse went to law enforcement authorities because, at the behest of the company, he had falsified reports about the repair of the steel containment vessels at the time of installation. The authorities asked TEPCO if there was any truth to it. TEPCO said no and, therefore, authorities declined to investigate.

"On the other hand, TEPCO said it didn't think the RPVs are completely broken, because the pressures inside the RPVs were higher than the atmosphere. "It is not like Chernobyl where the RPV exploded and the fuels were outside the RPV." TEPCO continued to believe in the integrity of the RPVs."

riiiiight. The pressure is higher for 2 reasons; they keep pouring water in, and it flashes into live steam. Even if you don't put the top on your pressure cooker, the pressure inside is higher than outside. The other thing is; the melted fuel and whatever that has collected in the bottom- can start to kind of "ferment", if you'll pardon the biological metaphor. It can flow, and segregate- and you can wind up with layers of cleaner fuel, unmoderated, which can start to go critical again. That'll heat stuff up, and vaporize all kinds of things. Pressure.

This is really too perfect to be accidental; I'll bet my hat the Japanese have hired a top Public Relations firm to actually spill the news. An hour after the previous bit about plutonium appearing; WAPO kicked in on it; with this teensy weensy extra bit:

"plutonium had been found in soil samples taken at the crippled plant one week ago"

Oh, there was already plutonium outside a week ago? That's interesting. And they didn't know? Right.

I had written a longish comment earlier, and blogger swallowed it up, :-(

Stoneleigh, a couple of items.. and thanks for your wisdom and insight in the past.

First, how should one best minimize the panic? We have seen the Japanese PTB attempt to sweep this monster under the carpet, which doesn't seem to be working too well. On the other hand, we have some not so well informed folks going ZOMGRUNWEREALLGONNADIE over a report on Xenon spread by weather patterns. Also not helpful. How can people best feel informed, and empowered, even though the crisis (at least in Fukushima Prefecture) is extremely dire.

Second, and I think this deserves a keypost either here or at TOD, let's discuss reprocessing of the spent fuel. It's a complicated issue that needs to be addressed at this point. It needs to be publicly discussed. This is the ultimate clash of environmental, nimby, geopolitical, military, energy, and technology issues. Is France the only place doing it?

Paul the URL you got for the vid is no longer working; and the one I gave for the CNN version now has some halfwit "commenting" in the first minute- then they cut the last parts off. So- the only one still working is the URL El Gal gave, for zerohedge. Not sure why it's disappearing. I do not want to lose it.

Robert Wilson said.... . . in a world where life has existed and thrived in a sea of ionizing radiation for eons.. . .I definitely took advantage of the inverse square law during the years that I was inserting radium needles into cancers. However I have found it difficult to get away from the radioactive potassium 40 in my own blood

So you are well aware of health risks posed by natural and man-concentrated radionuclides, and yet you make a disingenuous comment about life thriving in a sea of ionizing radiation, as if the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is nothing to get your panties in a twist about.

TEPCO now reports that is was not actually plutonium they found in the soil outside the reactor, but rather platinum. Evacuees returning.

Greenpa,

Why don't you just download the flash (.flv) file to your HD? The easiest way to do this on a Mac is to open RealPlayer, then Windows>Open RealPlayer Downloader.

Then refresh the youtube page and let the video play. When it is complete, go to the downloader window and click the blue download at the far right. Actually, if you have a fast connection, the file will be ready to save long before the video is completely played. Might be a good idea to direct the download to a folder you want before you start in preferences.

You seem like a really smart guy, so you probably have a Mac. As to Windows, I'll clean your toilet but I don't do windows.

There are other ways to do this, but I find this the simplest. I used to be able to download several youtubes at the same time, but starting about two months ago, if you start a new one, then the old one stops :-( Haven't found a work around for this, so once you start up the video, just let it run without molesting it.

Interesting article about whether the QE III is about to leave port in June.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/blood-streets-qe2-could-end-april

My critique of the article:

Ms. Chu writes as if all the Big Dogs will not be tipped off well ahead of time as to the Fed's intentions. Yeah. Right. She must be in a time warp or watching too many Superman movies.

Ms. Chu only deals with whether the corporate Usakistani economy is ready to take off the training wheels. She does not consider where the Treasury is going to get the 40% of expenses which aren't covered at the moment by revenues. I see this as a far bigger deterrent to aborting the embarkation of the QE III than even propping up the speculative markets. As I mentioned in my article a few days ago, the banksters can play a plunge to their enormous advantage, but where is the money going to come from for that 8 kilos of silver wire every cruise missile deposits in a Libyan account.

My best guess is that they will postpone the launch of QE III just long enough to plunge the markets and transfer the last of the 401-k and pension fund money to where it rightfully belongs. I laid it out in my article. Should only takes weeks or a couple of months. Then QE III with a vengeance by popular demand (hysteria), once again funding the deficit.

Also, she thinks bond rates will go down without QE III? LOL (Lots of Luck). Once again, where is the money to fund the $1.7T deficit going to come from if the Fed doesn't import it from an alternate universe? The economy will be wreathing on the bathroom floor, all tied up but with an empty spoon.

Its reasonable to assume the three previous explosions in buildings #1, #3, as recorded, and #4 [unrecorded], which caused the severe structural damage, were all caused either by partial meltdowns of reactor rods or by fatally exposed material in spent fuel pools, if the hydrogen required for the televised explosions can only be released by catastrophic malfunctioning of fuel assemblies, hydrogen released from exposed zircalloy cladding reactants or radiolysis of steam, or other sources generally associated with a meltdown in progress or exposed reactants.

Could it be possible to have these forceful explosions, as likely caused by hydrogen buildup, blowing off the roof and sides of buildings #1, #3 and #4, by any other process inside those buildings, besides a partial meltdown? The considerably enormous explosion of building #3 may indicate that the reactor vessel itself contributed by forceful pressure release, and breached upwards, destroying the spent fuel pool housed above there and scattering those materials, including some mox. A breach of reactor #3 would explain how any plutonium got outside, if mox was not yet stored in the fuel pools.Is it conceivable that it otherwise leaked out by steam venting, thus allowing for a chance that said reactor may remain unbreached?

Now the fuel rods in reactor #2, contained in a building that hadn't been visibly structurally damaged by explosion yet, are apparently also partially meltdowned, it has been announced today. Its possible that no less than four reactors have each suffered a partial meltdown, then. Reactors #5 and #6 are presumably intact at least?

IM - fantastic! Many thanks. That's it, and this is indeed a bit longer.

El. Gal - Huge thanks for the detailed info on downloading. Damn, I wish I'd had it years ago. I also greatly appreciate your assumption that I'm a Mac; I am, indeed, since they were 128k. I graduated directly from a Commodore 64. The math was easy.

I did it, I've downloaded it, I'm a Samoan.

(that's GOP Vice Presidential for "happy camper")

That video stuns me every time I dare look at it. The reason I was so frantic not to lose it; it strikes me as a real possibility that we have a genuinely new tool here for convincing people not to build houses in places where tsunamis are going to happen. (don't even say "likely" - people will die.)

ALL the other tsunami vids are all, like, "gosh, that looks kinda fun, in an embarrassing way".

But this one; alone of those I"ve seen, is utterly terrifying and CONVINCING. Build here- and DIE.

Listening to Grandma say "I'm telling you, idiot children, it's a terrible thing! Tsunamis are deadly! Don't play around with one!" - it's just so not the same thing. We're all used to discounting grandma, we all know she farts and has false teeth.

This video does not fart, nor have false teeth. Maybe people will actually find it convincing.

It illustrates, in 5+ minutes, the exact relationship between Man and Nature. We're little. She's big.

And just maybe- a few people will be able to extrapolate from the tsunami to- big earthquakes. Volcanoes. Maybe even, someday, nukes? For sure not everyone will; but maybe the slightly smarter ones can be convinced to move out of LA before it hits. That would be a good deed, I think.

Gravity - you don't need MOX fuel to get plutonium outside. The likely place the plutonium in the MOX came from was re-processed "spent" fuel. U-238, the vastly most common isotope, can capture a loose neutron (not hard to come by in the core) and turn to U-239; which fairly rapidly decays to Pt-239. Bingo; you're in the bomb biz. Just build yourself a nice peaceful power reactor, and save the spent fuel.

So, it could come from any of the leaking reactors; or, in fact, from the spent fuel pools/bonfires.

@GreenpaThanks, overlooked that fact. I'm still compiling a functional framework on nuclear physics, much to learn. However, I read that the mox fuel rods recently placed in reactor #3 are especially enriched with Pu, some 7% by mass, maybe more than in other rods, as commonly results as decay product? So reactor #3 isn't the only possible source of Pu, but could it be the most likely source if much Pu is detected outside, in comparison to U? Reactor building #3 is the most visibly damaged, most likely to have spilled some material in that explosion.

Also, xenon-133 is at least not known to be bioaccumulative, and isn't the most intense or persistent irradiator, it seems to decay to stable cesium-133, the one used to define the duration of a second. Although not radioactive, said cesium isotope may have a toxicity vector in high amounts, or not, otherwise radioxenon's health hazards shouldn't be that high.

The argument that xenon-133 is also used in pulmonary radioimaging may be defective for rejecting possible ill effects from its radiation, considering the duration, if not the intensity, of exposure from contamination may be more damaging than during brief and incidental radiological uses. In the short term, iodine contamination is most worrysome, but when release of new material finally does cease, the short half-lives of iodine isotopes ensure it'll mostly be gone in 2 months, depending on actual contamination multiples above legal thresholds for dangerous exposure, it won't take many halvings to reach safe levels again. Meanwhile its uptake into the thyroid is to be avoided.

Cs-137, Sr-90, being bioaccumulative and persistent isotopes with longer half-lives, will increase propensity for hazardous exposure with time, as moving through the foodchain via potassium and calcium uptake pathways respectively, peak bioaccumulative exposure to these should not occur for several years. Many foodstuffs from the contaminated areas will grow increasingly hazardous, as contaminables originally released slowly diminish via decay, this may be equally offset for a few centuries by the speed of bioaccumulative uptake.

Your regular updates and input regarding the japan issue and medical info regarding protection/detox from radioisotopes are much appreciated. :)

It seems the doomsters are on a frenzy to quantify how negative the details are. Qualitatively assessing the situation as a cluster&^%$ is good enough for me.

There are going to be higher frequency and higher intensity negative events to face over the coming years, and getting caught up in the details of this one this seems a little disingenuous to the over 600,000 children under the age of five that died since the date of the japan earthquake due to preventable water-borne disease.

The word "tsunami" is Japanese. No surprises here people. Yes it is a tragedy, but what makes it a tragedy is that the Japanese violated centuries of wisdom to power cell phones, TV's and propagate uncontrollably while completely discounting the future.

NZSanctuary said...Robert Wilson said.... . . in a world where life has existed and thrived in a sea of ionizing radiation for eons.. . .

So you are well aware of health risks posed by natural and man-concentrated radionuclides, and yet you make a disingenuous comment about life thriving in a sea of ionizing radiation, as if the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is nothing to get your panties in a twist about.

I have worked with radiation since 1948 and am well aware of the claimed health risks. However I believe that the dangers of low level radiation may be exaggerated. There is probably more evidence for radiation hormesis than for the linear no-threshold hypothesis. See T. D Luckey and others. I am not complacent about Fukushima but believe that there is an excess of fear mongering hysteria. This is understandable but there is probably more to fear from being deprived of energy and materials.RW SO CA

A set of 85,000 teeth that had been uncovered in storage in 2001 were given to the Radiation and Public Health Project. By tracking the individuals who had participated in the tooth-collection project, the RHPR published results in a 2010 issue of the International Journal of Health Service that showed that those children who later died of cancer before the age of 50 had levels of strontium 90 in their stored baby teeth that was twice the level of those who were still alive at 50.

I don't know what to say other than it seems to me that the precautionary principle should apply - especially where children may be involved.

From your last comment, one might infer that you are in your late 80's. Interesting.

Summarizing your contributions to the comment section of this blog, you start out stating that a certain amount of radiation beyond the normal background is probably conducive to enhanced health.

(Aside)

I once had a rather strange chiropractor in St. John, a heavy smoker of unfiltered cigarettes, relate to me that this was conducive to better health. I told him that I had been a heavy smoker but had finally managed to quit ten years ago, and despite ten years of aging, I certainly felt better now. Shortly before I quit I had my lungs tested as a routine check for anesthesia for a fairly minor surgery, and the physician reported to me that another year or two and I would have irreversible emphysema.

I then asked that besides my lungs clearing of tar, and not coughing up a kilo of phlegm in the morning, what about all the epidemiological studies relating cigarette smoking to lung cancer and heart disease. He replied quite smugly, "The Monte Carlo fallacy," thinking that was the deciding blow to the argument. Fortunately, I was quite familiar at the time with the MCF, and proceeded to dismantle his argument. Of course nothing was settled other than I knew this guy was a complete flake and asshole, which was useful on such a small island.

Back to radiation. There is a substantial body of evidence that asthma is more common among the children of some elite groups because their environment is too sterile, and a little dirt augments their immune system. However, if this is true, I see no connection with radiation. The sterile conditions these children are raised in are not compatible with their evolutionary history.

Most ionizing radiation is destructive to somatic DNA, and produces counterproductive mutations in germ DNA. But evolution cannot proceed without mutations, something that Darwin was unaware of and undermined his theory at the time. And, TTBOMK in the natural world devoid of countless carcinogenic chemicals, i.e. a few million years ago, ionizing radiation was the main source of mutations. So life balanced its DNA repair mechanisms. If they were too effective, they would reduce mutations to a level where evolution could not proceed. And to ineffective, everything would be born with two heads and no legs. So one may argue, that if background radiation has not changed drastically for a few eons, then the normal, pre-technological background radiation is ideal for life.

I see one possible mechanism that could support a limited hormesis theory of radiation being that organisms have some ability to over adjust their DNA repair mechanisms against a slight increase in radiation, which could be beneficial to the individual if not the fate of its species.

As to how much additional radiation is significantly harmful, and whether a slight increase could actually be beneficial, we must rely on statistical studies. Stoneleigh, while not espousing your hormesis theory, does agree that panic over slightly increased levels in other countries and continents is unwarranted. But I find your final sentence most elucidating, "This is understandable but there is probably more to fear from being deprived of energy and materials." So we suddenly jump from an idea that Stoneleigh concurs with, to the idea that nuclear generation of power to keep our level of economy and apparent comfort intact is worth the price to be paid by future generations. A contention which she certainly does not agree with. And also somewhat ignoring that northern Honshu is trashed for hundreds of years for healthy human habitation. You should have kept that sheepskin wrapped around those lupine canines a little tighter Mr. Wilson.

I haven't had time to read all the comments so don't know if this subject has been covered but on the subject of "dirty bombs" it is a fact that hundred of thousands of dirty bombs have already been exploded and more are being exploded as I write this. I am writing of the weapons that contain depleted uranium. An estimated 700 tons of depleted uranium was dispersed during Nato's attacks during the Kosovo- Bosnia war, 350 tons was dispersed over Kuwait and Iraq and no doubt many more tons are now being vapourised and dispersed over Lybia. This is the dirty open secret of the use of the waste material left over from the nuclear enrichment process. An estimated 700,000 tons of this highly toxic matter is in storage in the U.S. alone. Search on UTUBE and see for yourselfs the thousands of horrific birth defects that this nuclear waste has caused amongst the citizens of Fallujah, not to mention the effects on the soldiers of the US and allies who have also been exposed to this material. Is "gulf war syndrome" such a mystery when you take the dispersal of this material into the soil and atmosphere into account? Hopefully next time Stoneleigh has the opportunity she can help to high light this neglected but lethal aspect of the nuclear industry. Tazzy.

Dirty bombs already exist and have been exploded. They are being exploded right now as I write this, in Lybia. I am talking about the weapons that are made from depleted uranium. Seven hundred tons of this highly toxic material was dispersed over eastern europe by Nato forces during the Bosnia conflict and a thousand tons over Kuwait and Iraq during the wars there. How ironic that the wars in the middle east were to stop the possibility of a regime using a dirty bomb in a terrorist attack. See the reports on youtube about the thousands of birth defects occuring in Fallujah as the result of the dispersal of this material. Even 25 mm rounds contain depleted uranium. Seven hundred thousand tons of this byproduct of nuclear enrichment is in "storage" in the U.S. alone. Is "gulf war syndrome" such a mystery when we take into account that US soldiers and their allies were expose to this radioactive material when it was vaporised in the atmosphere during the firing of their weapons? Hopefully Stoneleigh can help to inform the publi of this dirty "open secret" when next she talks on the nuclear subject. Exscuse me if this has already been covered in the comments, there are too many to read all of them.

From your last comment, one might infer that you are in your late 80's. Interesting.

For the record I am 80. I first worked as an x-ray technician during high school. Certification was not required in those days.I continued working as a technician while in medical school. and later trained as a radiologist. I have followed the controversies since the late 50's. The precautionary principle and ALARA have been accepted practice. It is of interest that in spite of the increase in medical imaging, uranium mining, testing of nuclear weapons, and use of nuclear power; longevity in the US is at an all time high. LNT is a standard model - see Bier VII - but true effects of millirem exposures are generally hidden by statistical noise